Motorcycles are two-wheeled motor vehicles that have appeared in all Grand Theft Auto games except Grand Theft Auto 2, Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto Advance. Other names and types associated to motorcycles in GTA include motorbicycle, motorbike, bike, crotch rocket, moped, and chopper.Quadbikes are included in this group, even though they have 4 wheels, inatead of two. Motorcycles are smaller than most vehicles in the game. They are small and narrow enough to travel in places where larger vehicles normally cannot fit. Since Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the player can perform a forward drive-by while on any motorcycle. The downside of riding motorcycles is without a protective cage, the player can be ejected from the motorcycle during collisions and is prone to damage from gunfire. Getting busted is much easier as the cops do not have to open a door. Reversing on a motorcycles requires the character to use its feet to reverse (except for the Quadbike), much slower than cars.

In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the player can increase the Bike Skill of Carl Johnson, either through long rides on motorcycles or lessons in the Bike School. The higher the skill, the less chance Carl will fall off the motorcycle and the more responsive the motorcycle is.

In Grand Theft Auto IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony, the player character will automatically put on a helmet if given time to do so. Some mission-specific characters will wear unique helmets not seen anywhere else in the game.

GTA Chinatown Wars

GTA V

Glitches

In Vice City if your health goes to zero, and you manage to stay on a motorcycle you will not die. Instead your health bar will flash (like normal) and you keep riding, but if you are in a crash and fall off you will die if you get off the motorcycle for any reason you will die. It is possible this happens in the other Gta III era games aside from Advance and III as they do not have motorcycles.

Trivia

One slight inaccuracy in the operation of motorcycles in GTA IV is that when the player answers his cell phone while driving the bike he uses his right hand which in reality would disable his ability to accelerate as the throttle is located on that side. Yet the player is somehow still able to operate and accelerate the bike while talking on the phone.

In GTA IV, the handlebars don't move when the player turns the front wheel, but this is fixed in the Episodic Content.

In GTA: San Andreas, when the player has a recruited Grove Street Families gang member and gets on a motorcycle, sometimes the passenger will call out "Shotgun" to sit in the front seat, but he can only get on the back. This proves the same dialogue is used for both cars and motorcycles in the game.

According to the Liberty Tree themed instructions manual in Liberty City Stories, due to their dangerous nature bikes were being voted to be banned off the streets of Liberty City during the time LCS is set. This might be a story-wise explaination for the lack of bikes in Grand Theft Auto III.